Not Far From the Tree
by magicaltragical
Summary: Maddie makes an observation about Daphne that scares Deacon a little bit. Takes place immediately after the end of episode 6.10, "Two Sparrows in a Hurricane". One-shot.


This is my first Nashville story. Takes place right after episode 6.10 "Two Sparrows in a Hurricane". Enjoy, and leave a review if you feel so inclined!

* * *

"You ok, Daphne?" Maddie asks her sister. Deacon's eyes dart up to the rearview mirror to where the young girl sits quietly in the backseat. Not for the first time tonight, Deacon grows a little misty-eyed. Daphne looks so grown up back there, with her hair and make-up professionally done for the show, yes, but there is just an air about her that isn't the little girl that she was just a couple of years ago. There's a mature, knowing look in her eyes. It's bittersweet, because Deacon sees how she is blossoming into a beautiful young lady with a deeply artistic soul. But there's a slight darkness to that, Deacon knows that from experience. You can't have a soul like that at such a young age unless you've been through some pain.

Daphne eventually turns to look at Maddie in the passenger seat. "Yeah, I'm fine."

He wants to keep his eyes on the road, so he doesn't let his gaze linger - but Deacon swears he sees a shine of tears in her eyes that belies her words. It's been quite an emotional night for all of them, really.

"So I didn't get a chance to say anything backstage," Maddie says. "You were pulled away by the producers so fast. But that song was insanely good, Daph. Like literally I had tears streaming down my face. I could not write that good when I was 14."

Daphne scoffs. "Shut up."

Deacon smiles. "No, seriously, sweetheart. That was a very beautiful song. Just like everything else I've heard you write lately. Your momma really would have loved this one."

Daphne doesn't say anything.

"So do you have any idea what you're doing for the next episode yet?" Maddie asks. Deacon thinks his older daughter is asking mostly to break the silence.

"I've got a couple ideas," Daphne says with a small smile. Deacon chuckles to himself a little. Oh, to be young and full of what seems like an endless stream of song ideas. He remembers those days.

"Awesome," Maddie says. "Well if you want any feedback or anything, I'll always listen. Of course, maybe you should go to Dad, because you might already be better at this than me."

Deacon sees Daphne smile in the rearview mirror, but he turns his attention to Maddie for just a moment.

"Don't sell yourself short, sweetheart," Deacon says. "You've written some great stuff."

"Thanks," Maddie says as she leans her head on her arm propped on the window of his truck.

Deacon notices that Daphne has focused her attention at the window. He doesn't know if he'll ever get over how amazing she was tonight. But he does feel a little sad about it. She's growing up really fast, and he can already see life eating away at her typical child-like naivete, and it breaks his heart. Daphne was always a precocious child - funny, outgoing, adorable as hell. He wishes she could have stayed that happy and carefree forever.

But, Deacon supposes, after the enormous amount of crap she'd been put through lately, it'd be hard for anyone not to have her joy snuffed out. It's been replaced by a lingering sadness that never quite leaves her eyes.

He never expected to be a parent, especially not to have sole responsibility of two teenage girls suddenly drop into his lap. But boy, does he love it. He loves being a dad. But it sure ain't easy.

They arrive home, and Daphne goes upstairs to change and shower before bed. Maddie offers to make some tea for both of them.

He watches Maddie as she fills the kettle with water and places it on the stove. This girl is growing up to be so much like her mother. She's beautiful, loyal to those she loves, fiercely independent, and definitely not afraid to say how she feels or what she's thinking. Maddie wears her heart on her sleeve just like Rayna did.

Daphne is a little harder to read, at least for Deacon. Even when he knows something is wrong, Daphne won't just come out and say it the way Maddie does. Sometimes, he feels like he has to go to battle with her to get her to open up.

"You're kind of quiet," Maddie observes, turning to him while waiting for the water to boil on the stove. "Everything okay?"

"Yeah," he whispers. It's been a really long day.

"How's Jessie's lawsuit going?" she asks.

Deacon sighs. It feels like a million years ago but it was only just this afternoon when they'd made the excruciatingly painful decision to end their relationship.

"Do we have to talk about that right now?" he asks.

Maddie cringes. "That bad, huh?"

Deacon just looks at her. He knows his expression is enough to answer her question.

"I'm sorry, Dad," she says. "That really sucks. I hope you guys work it out with Brad somehow. I was getting to really like Jessie."

"Me too," Deacon says softly, and then does whatever he can to change the subject. He does not want to talk about this right now. "So what do you got goin' on this week?"

Maddie shrugs. "I don't really know yet. Jonah's in Miami, but I might be recording some stuff with him when he gets back."

Deacon nods. He doesn't want to say what he's really thinking. It's been a long night and he doesn't have the energy to fight her. But damn, he wishes she would work a little more on her own stuff. He wishes Maddie would put more effort into her own work and less into Jonah's, but this is just not a conversation he can have right now.

Maddie apparently doesn't want to either, because she quickly changes the subject. "I'm still honestly just blown away by Daphne tonight. Did you see everyone in the crowd? Everyone loved her!"

"Of course they did," Deacon agrees with a quiet grin. "She was beautiful and amazing up there. She has a stage presence, for sure, and that's something you just can't teach someone. You do too, you know. You both get that from your mother."

Maddie smiles. "Thanks, Dad."

The shrill whistle of the tea kettle suddenly fills the air in the kitchen. Maddie turns and quickly plucks it off the burner and returns to fill the mugs.

"It was heartbreaking, though," Maddie continues as she pours. "And like I don't just mean that because she was singing about my mom too. Like even if I didn't know her, that song was really raw and honest and emotional, especially for someone who's only 14."

"Yeah," Deacon whispers distractedly as he pulls the mug his daughter offers him. Steeping the tea bag, he sighs.

"I worry about her a little bit," Maddie says. "I know she had a really hard time last year, and sometimes it seems like she's doing a lot better but other times she still just seems so sad, you know? And like I get it, because I still get really sad about Mom all the time too, but it seems just . . . different for her somehow."

"Well, you're right," Deacon agrees. "The difference is that you're okay with people knowing when your sad. She tries to hide it."

"Well, she's not very good at it," Maddie sighs. "It's very obvious when Daphne is sad."

Deacon lets out a small, sad laugh. "Yes it is. But what I mean is, if you're upset you'll let people know exactly what it is you're upset about. Daphne, you gotta needle it out of her sometimes."

"Okay, yeah, I see what you're saying," Maddie concedes. "Maybe that's why she can write such emotional music."

"No doubt." Deacon knows this to be true. He shakes his head. 'I really, really hate to admit it . . . but I suppose Brad was right about this one. I really hate that guy, and I wasn't comfortable watching him push her into this – and I'm still not sure she was ready. But damn if she didn't make something beautiful out of it. And maybe that's the way she's best at working through things."

He takes a sip of his tea, and then chuckles a little to himself as he sets his mug back down on the counter. Maddie fixes him with a quizzical gaze.

"It's funny," he explains. "The other day, Daphne and I were bickerin' about this whole thing, cause I was worried that Brad only was pushin' her to write the song to exploit her and she shouldn't be forced to write about her feelin's. She came at me with 'Well, do you think I'm an artist or not?' I said of course I do. And even then I thought she might end up someday being a great artist. I didn't think she was ready now, though. I was wrong. She wrote a beautiful song after all. She's definitely an artist, no doubt about that one."

Maddie laughs a little, and now it's Deacon's turn to wonder what she was laughing at.

"What?" he asks.

"You know what's really funny? I've noticed this for a while now, but tonight and this conversation just proves it."

"What's that?"

Maddie puts a hand on his shoulder. "Daphne is turning out to be really good at songwriting, because she's getting it figured out how to channel some deep feelings and all of her pain into some really beautiful, soulful music. Sounds like someone else I know, you know? I may be the one that's your blood daughter, but Daphne is the one who is a lot like you."

"God help her," Deacon quips. He passes it off like a joke, but he's actually quite serious. Maddie's observation immediately scares him.

Maddie smiles, but Deacon notes it doesn't quite reach her eyes. He can see that she realizes some of the impact of what she said.

"Difference is that Daph has a good support system," she covers. _Nice save, kiddo._ But she's not wrong.

"That she does."

Maddie squeezes his shoulder. "I'm going to get ready for bed. Goodnight, Dad."

"'Night, Maddie."

He quickly focuses his attention back on his mug. Was Daphne turning out to be just like him? He so deeply didn't want her to be like him, it was beyond his comprehension. But now that Maddie said it, it's hard to ignore some of the similarities.

It was different crap then he had, but Daphne has definitely had a lot of very heavy, dark stuff thrown on her at an early age. Deacon knows better than anyone how profoundly that can change you and the course of your life.

But part of it must be inherent, Deacon realizes. Maddie had been put through a lot too, hadn't she? She was around the age Daphne is now when she learned that her father wasn't actually her father and that _he_ actually was. And a hell of a lot came afterwards that Deacon doesn't even want to think about.

But Daphne was put through all of that, too. And she was even _younger_.

With his mug in hand, Deacon wanders over to the living room, where there are a few pictures in frames. Pictures of Rayna and the girls. He picks up a frame with a photo of Maddie and Daphne at some event many years ago. Looking at it, he estimates that Maddie was around 13, making Daphne around 8 years old.

He looks at Daphne in the picture. She's so tiny and cute. Her hair, much thinner and a much lighter shade of blonde than it is now, was pulled into a graceful braid draped over her shoulder. Her sunflower print dress was brightly colored, but it did not outshine her adorable smile. Deacon smiles a little to himself. He chuckles a little bit to note that Maddie's small smile was far more reserved. Clearly, the older sister of the pair wasn't as excited to be there as her younger counterpart. Typical teenage Maddie, Deacon thinks.

But Daphne. Deacon thinks with a pang that it's hard to even believe that's the same girl he saw pour her heart out on stage tonight. That bubbly, spunky little girl in the photo has no idea what lay ahead for her. She has no idea the heartache the next 5 or 6 years would bring her, and how her world would be shattered.

This little girl in the photo has two parents who are married to each other. She goes to school and plays with her friends and sings cute songs with her sister. Her father is an important finance guy of some sort, Deacon doesn't know. Her mother is a country music legend who is vibrantly alive. Everything is perfect in her world.

What the girl in the photo doesn't have is an ex-mayor father who is in jail after being very publicly disgraced. She doesn't have a dead mom. She doesn't have a sister who is (understandably) grown up and finding her own way without her, leaving her feeling alone and abandoned. Her sole guardianship is not entrusted to her recovering alcoholic stepfather with violent tendencies who has a bogus restraining order against him. She's not maybe being exploited on reality TV by an abusive asshole. She is carefree and she has no pain to write hauntingly beautiful songs about.

He sets the frame down and looks at the photo next to it. It's of Rayna on their wedding day, two very long years ago. It's a picture he often turns to when he wants to see her face and talk to her.

He picks it up and sighs.

"I'm sorry, Ray," he says. "From here on out I promise you I'll do everything I can to make sure she doesn't turn out like me. I'd like her to be more like you."

Of course, he knows that's not fully in his control. Like he thought before, some of this propensity for hiding in and possibly from her emotional pain might just be naturally in her. Maddie isn't that way at all. Maddie is not afraid to yell and scream and tell people off when she's upset.

"Maddie is just like you, babe," he tells the photo. "She's so beautiful. And fiery. And talented. And stubborn as a mule." He chuckles. "Well, actually, Daphne is all of those things, too. But you know what I mean."

He rubs a thumb over her face in the photo. "It's been a little over a year now, and so much has happened. But I know you'd be real proud of them. I know I am."

He thinks again about Daphne tonight. Of course, if Rayna were here she wouldn't have written that song, but he knows Rayna would have loved it. Rayna would have been so proud of the beauty, grace, and sheer artistic talent Daphne showed tonight, both as a singer and as a songwriter.

Her song had cut to his very soul, and he saw how it cut to the souls of everyone in that audience. Even Brad, despite all his fake-suspense show-boatery about giving her a "yes", was right about one thing: Daphne definitely was her mother's daughter up there. But she was something else, too. She was her own soul up there, too.

After years of forced therapy through alcohol rehab, he knows himself well enough to see where Maddie can make a comparison between him and Daphne. Daphne is quieter than Maddie about what she feels. Deacon is too. He hates having to _talk_ about things to death. He knows they both have a tendency to bottle things up and let them sit there until it becomes a total disaster. He, unfortunately, turned to very self-destructive habits as an outlet. She, last year after her mother's death, had fallen into full-blown depression. She'd fallen into some lighter self-destruction like blowing off school and running off and falling in with that Liv girl that he still thinks was not such a good influence.

But the other way she is like him, he realizes, may not be such a bad thing. It's starting to become apparent that Daphne has a gift for taking those bottled up feelings and pouring them into her music with full intensity. It took Deacon awhile in life to realize it, but that's exactly what he did, too. His best and most successful songs had come from deep inside, when he'd pulled from the bottom of himself to his dig up his most grotesque pain.

It's not that Daphne has more talent than Maddie, for example, but more that Daphne's methods of expression were so different than her older sister's. Maddie creates what she loves and what makes sense to her musically. Daphne opens her soul into her music in such a unique and deep way.

Deacon looks at Rayna's elegantly beautiful face once more and smiles. "That's how you used to describe my music, isn't? That it was _literally_ my soul?"

Still clutching the picture frame, Deacon glances up the stairs. He'll go check on Daphne in a minute. He loves that girl. As far as he's concerned, she's _his_ daughter now. If she is a little bit like him, seriously, _God help her_ , but he can't help but feel a slight sense of pride there. He's okay with being a little like _her_ , to be frank. Because he's so incredibly proud of the young lady she is becoming.

And as the man who suddenly and unexpectedly became the dad in her life, he'll do what he can to make sure she only takes the best parts of him. He'll do anything he can to steer her away from struggling and suffering and self-destruction. He can't shield her from all the pain the world has brought her or what it might still bring her. But he can help her avoid all his mistakes.

Music as an emotional outlet was always the thing that worked best for him, once he recognized it. Sometimes it felt like it caused him more pain, but once he had a finished piece that he felt good about, he appreciated the catharsis it brought him. It's like therapy, in a way – you had to drag yourself through some deep mud in order to get past things. Except better, he figures. At the end here you have created something you can be proud of.

If music is what Daphne needs, if she is like him and needs to put her soul into song form in order to survive her own suffering with minimal damage, then Deacon resolves to do whatever he can to make sure she can continue to do that. He will make sure she continues to use music as a way not just to deal with her emotions, but to express them so that those who love her can know them and she won't be hiding herself. And beyond that, she is just like everyone else in the family in that she derives so much joy from music. Despite the heartache she felt, Deacon won't soon forget Daphne's big, beautiful smile as she received praise up there tonight from the show's judges. He knows that a part of her simply _enjoyed_ herself tonight. He understands that, because he has felt that too after performing a deeply personal song.

He can give her music. That he can certainly do. He can help her figure out how to use it to be happy and healthy and not become a human disaster like he used to be.

He knows clear as day, as he sets the picture frame back down, that it's what Rayna would want him to do for her daughter.

 _Their_ daughter.


End file.
